Although we’ve had tastes of this new level of change in the form of mega-storms, terrorist events, and regional disasters, something new is unfolding now.
Certainly, the advent of COVID-19 put us into a new relationship with change. There are a variety of other 2020 transitions that are contributing to this shift as well.
What we know about change continues to be valuable, but it is not sufficient for helping ourselves and our clients navigate all that is unfolding these days.
Over the next few months (and years?) I encourage you to track what’s happening for you and your loved ones as well as what’s happening for your clients. The insights we gain from our own journeys and our work with clients will be invaluable in the years to come.
In my own study over the last few years, I’ve discovered we need a new language to accurately portray what is happening. Sometimes familiar words require a deeper exploration to see how they apply now. Other times we must discover new concepts that describe what we are experiencing.
Waves of Change I'll be Following in the Remaining Months of 2021
Freefall
When we experience crisis-driven change, shifts can happen so quickly that it feels like the bottom drops out. When you choose to experience this sensation at a carnival or theme park, it can be fun to feel how the sudden weightlessness feels in your body. But when you experience freefall in your life, it can be terrifying. Everything you’ve known is threatened or wiped away in an instant. For an undefined period of time, there’s nothing solid to hold onto. You can’t tell what to do, where to go, or how to find solid ground.
You and your clients may have experienced a Freefall in response to: a hurricane, a wild fire, a diagnosis, a shift in a relationship, a death, a job loss, the COVID-19 shut downs.
A Freefall you or your clients may have experienced in the past can be reactivated by current situations (more on this in a moment).
Deep Uncertainty
Whenever we experience a transition there’s an inherent amount of uncertainty we face as the pieces of our lives settle back into some sense of normalcy. Throughout 2020 and 2021, we’ve experienced such relentless waves of change -- personally and collectively -- that it’s been difficult to find our center and keep our center.
Part of the reason for this wobble is that the changes we face cannot be resolved with a series of simple steps. Instead, we are facing more unknowns than ever before. There’s no way to plan or think ahead because we have no sense of what’s to come. We must stay plugged into what’s happening to find the best action to take in the moment, trusting we'll have and know all we need to evolve into the next step.
Since we have all experienced one or more Freefalls this year, we are feeling unsettled by the degree and depth of the uncertainties we face right now.
You and your clients may be picking up on the general uncertainties we all feel. Or you may be experiencing deep uncertainties at a very personal level that impact your health, mental well-being, financial stability, relationships, and home.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
The Freefall Events and the Deep Uncertainty are bound to amp up our stress and trauma. It’s easy to imagine the kinds of events in our current world that may be causing a PTSD response. Be aware that your clients’ past trauma responses may also be retriggered by personal circumstances or events in the news. Even if you aren’t qualified to help them resolve their trauma, you may be in a position to help them see that getting support, especially now, would be helpful to their healing.
Anniversary Reaction
Sometimes we make it through the initial event, a little worse for wear, but we find our way through. But as the years roll forward we find ourselves reliving the emotions, thoughts, and physical sensations that we were unable to process during the original event. If your client isn’t aware of this dynamic, they may assign these feelings to current scenarios in their life, when really their body is helping them heal through something in their past. Correctly attributing the source of their angst and discomfort can help them begin to release their tension and heal from the original event.
Some may be experiencing anniversary reactions due to their previous experiences. A previous storms, social justice traumas, and the run up to the election in the United States. We also need to think ahead.
We’ve had a large number of significant collective and personal events in the last two years that may stimulate anniversary reactions in future years.
For example:
When we walk experience each COVID-19 surge?
In the hot, dry months when fires rage on the West Coast?
During hurricane season, as another storm approaches the coast?
The dates of personal losses of jobs, health, family members, and freedom?
Grief
With all of the events described above come the potential for and inevitability of grief. Most of us don’t know how to grieve. We’ve never been given space to grief nor been shown how to tap into the deep sorrow we feel when we experience losses. Unexpressed emotions go underground and fester until they are allowed to move through us.
If you look around our world right now, you can see ample evidence of that unexpressed grief and pain. It shows up in depression, addictive behaviors, abuse, violence, suicides, illnesses, stress disorders, insomnia, and more. As the pain and discomfort of our grief build, we need to find and learn ways to feel, process, and express what’s hurting us so we can move through the pain and heal.
Personal losses abound right now. For some the personal grief is triggered by multiple events. Cultural losses have our attention too.
Planetary shifts are also putting us in touch with our grief about the state of the planet and the world as we’ve known and loved it.
Seeing and naming the new dynamics of this time will give us a deeper perspective and understanding of what we are going through and how we can help those around us.
As we find our way through this time of deep uncertainty and relentless waves of change, as humans and as Change Catalysts supporting those around us, please have compassion for yourself, those you live with, and those you work with. We are all holding a lot right now.
Change Catalysts at the Growing Edge PODCAST featuring: New Trends in Transitions
A trailblazer in this field, Carol has watched transition trends change significantly over the last 35 years. Carol believes that Coaches, Healers, and other Change Catalysts are on the front lines in our changing world.
With the change we are all feeling in current times, this podcast episode is more relevant than ever. Many resources are available too. Listen Here
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